Holly and Ned sat together in Ned’s dining room starling listlessly at the
broken Walkman sitting in the center of the table. The discovery of the
Walkman on the street had filled them with a sense of elation at having made
some progress in their search, but it had been short-lived when they
realized that its discovery ind icated Ernie was ind eed missing.

Holly ran her hand against the worn buttons and the faint scrawls in the
back that spelled out Ernie’s name. She hoped he was okay.

Lavina bustled into the room with a fresh pot of coffee and a platter of
pastries. She had not been pleased initially with Ned bringing Holly back with
him, but he had taken her to the kitchen and shared with her the story Holly
had told him outside St. Ives.

Even Lavina’s insecure jealousy was overcome by the sadness of the story,
and she had set about making them all comfortable in the best way she knew how
– by cooking for them. There had been no end to the del icious sweets produced
in the kitchen, and the coffee seemed to be in infinite supply as well.

The silence was broken by the sudden stentorian ring of the telephone,
sending Holly bolting upright in her chair in surprise at the sound. Ned
picked up the call.

“Hello? Oh, hi Rhonda.” Holly craned her neck anxiously. Did she have news
about Ernie?

“Really? Is he OK? Hmmmm. OK, Elston you say? Yeah, we’ll be over in a few
minutes.” He slowly put down the phone. Holly asked impatiently, “Well, what
did she say?”

Holly’s eyes moistened again. “Well, we have to go see him.” She stood up
purposefully and grabbed her coat from the rack in the corner. Ned pushed the
front door open for her and smiled wryly at his wife as they stepped out into
the cold again.

Ames and Cobb both brea thed a long sigh of relief as they sat down in their
car and started the engine, waiting for the heater to kick in. Once their
backup had arrived, the warehouse was a non-stop circus of detectives, beat-
cops, and forensics experts. It seemed like Foster had called in the entire
force to the scene.

Ambulances had arrived at the scene shortly after Ames had called them in,
but were now all gone, hurtling towards hospitals as fast as they could go.
The man that was shot, identified as Mike Turner by the license in his wallet,
was declared dead on arrival by the paramedics, but the victim, whose name was
still unknown, was barely clinging to life and had been sped away in an
ambulance quickly.

Turner’s death came as no surprise – few men could survive five bullets to
the chest from moderate range. The other man’s survival came as a surprise to
both Ames and Cobb. He had been beaten badly, and both detectives had their
doubts as to whether he’d make it through the night. Only time would tell.

Cobb and Ames had answered hundreds of questions already, and there were
going to be plenty more tomorrow, especially about the shooting and their
abandonment of the car accident. Questions would have to wait for now, though;
both of them had agreed that they needed to go and check on the victims of the
car accident. It was the least they could do after abandoning the scene.

“So did you hear about that guy, Turner?” Ames asked as he leaned back
wearily against the headrest.

“No, what about him?” Cobb replied.

“Apparently, he killed his wife’s boyfriend earlier today after he found
them in bed together. Beat him to a pulp with a baseball bat, and did a fair
number on his wife, too.”

Cobb shook his head. “Well, I can’t say I’m sad to see him gone, then.
Especially after seeing what he did to that poor guy.”

Ames nodded in agreement. “So where we heading? Were you able to find out
where they took the car wreck people?”

Cobb replied as he looked over his shoulder to back out into the street,
“Yeah, they all got taken to Elston Memorial.”

“Elston?” Ames exclaimed. “Wasn’t Schumann closer?”

“Yeah, but apparently some nut took a shotgun into the mall on Franklin and
went crazy, so Schumann was full of gunshot victims.”

Ames chuckled wryly. “Well, nev er a dull day around here, huh?”

“No kidding. Well, they took the guy here to Elston as well, so we can check
up on both of them, and let that Mendocino kid know what’s going on, all at
the same time.

“Nothing like killing three birds with one stone,” Ames commented as they
careened down the road.

Joel opened his eyes and noticed immediately that he was back in the strange
room of his dreams. Directly in front of him was the old man, roll of cloth
beside him, still looking intently at the mass of threads in his lap. He
continued to ignore Joel.

Joel looked around slowly. The room was exactly as it had been the last time
he had been here. The candle flickering on a low table, the infinitely long
dark room stretching out behind him, light peeking in through a solitary
window in the distance. Yes, this was definitely the room in which he’d found
himself a few hours ago. What was he doing back here?

“Joel.” He started at the sound and stepped back as the speaker strode out
from the shadows behind the old man.

“Don’t worry,” the man smiled warmly. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Joel looked the man up and down. He was dressed in a long thin robe, a rich
dark brown in color. His features were nothing special – he appeared to be an
average middle-aged man in every respect. A thin black cord lined his neck,
and his robe hung loosel over his broad shoulders.

His skin was dark, but seemed to shine strangely as well, and the air was
filled with a pleasant freshness as he strode towards Joel and extended his
hand towards him. Joel glanced in confusion at the old man, who sat,
unperturbed by the strange man.

The man laughed. “Oh, don’t mind Qismah, he’s married to his work. He
doesn’t pay attention to anything except those threads. Come, I have plenty to
show you. I’m sure you have questions, and hopefully I can answer some of them
for you. I am Hospes.”

Joel took his hand, marveling at the warmness exuded by it on his own
chilled limb. Hospes led him beyond Qismah, to the back of the impossibly long
room, talking as the went slowly.

“Well, Joel, you were supposed to have been here some time ago, but Qismah
had to improvise a little when things didn’t go as planned with Mr. Turner.”

Joel was taken aback by his guide’s flippant attitude. If he really was
dead, he didn’t think Hospes should be laughing about it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Joel, but I think you’ll find that there are worse things
than dying.” Hospes continued along past Qismah’s position.

“Like I said before, Joel, the last time you were here, I was supposed to
greet you and give you ‘the talk,’ as we call it, but Qismah ended up putting
you back out there, due to an unexpected development with Mr. Turner.” Hospes
motioned to his right, and Joel saw, to his amazement, another bewildered man
following another robed figure, just beyond a mysterious glass partition.

“We do our best to keep track of things around here, and Qismah does a fine
job of keeping things running smoothly, but we’re far from fortune tellers, so
every once in awhile something slips through that has to be dealt with, like
what happened tonight. It makes things harder, for you especially, but I think
you can handle it.” He stopped abruptly and turned to face Joel.

“Well here I am, prattling on… What about you? Do you have any questions?”

Joel had plenty. He was still unclear about where he was and what was going
on. But where to begin?

“Ummm, well, what exactly does – Qismah – do?”

Hospes smiled. “Qismah is the weaver. You see, Joel, you interact with lots
of different people. Your choices and your actions affect a lot of different
things, even if you don’t see those effects first hand. Qismah is responsible
for keeping the system sane, for making sure the knots get tied properly…”
Hospes could tell he was losing Joel.

“Here, it might make more sense if you could see some things.” He motioned
to the left wall, where Joel saw a window that he hadn’t noticed before. He
peered out, looking over the lush jungle, but then it faded, replaced by a
beaten man in a hospital bed.

“Joel, meet Ernie. You saved his life, but you didn’t even know it until
now. In fact, that man you tried to save today when you were shot was a good
friend of Ernie’s. But that’s beside the point right now.

“When Qismah retied your knot, you went and got in that car accident, but if
you hadn’t, a police car carrying two detectives would have been hit by the
speeding car instead, and Ernie would have died in the meantime. But now,
thanks to you, he has a chance.”

“But will he be OK?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, we’re not fortune-tellers. But I do know if you
hadn’t done what you did, he would have died. And here’s another interesting
fact,” Hospes continued as the hospital scene faded, replaced by a scene that
Joel recognized. He was standing on the train, holding the door for a man
running towards the train.

“You held the train for Mike this morning, a man who would later kill his
wife’s boyfriend and would try to kill Ernie, the man you ended up saving.”

“So I’m actually responsible for Ernie’s almost-death?” Joel asked.

Hospes nodded. “Sort of, but not really… It’s complicated. That’s the
point. Your entire life s one big complicated knot of events and interactions.
Most people don’t realize that, but I think you do, to some extent at least.”

Joel remembered some of the late-night conversations he’d had while in Asia
. What Hospes was saying made sense in a lot of ways.

“So now I’m dead?”

“Yes. But your time had come anyway. You were supposed to die from an
unexpected heart failure, which is what brought you here in the first place,
but then, like I said, Qismah retied your knot. But he tied it in such a way
that would bring you back here while fixing things. It’s not yet Ernie’s time
– at least, we don’t think it is. Like I said before, this isn’t fortune-
telling.”

“What is going to happen to that guy, Mike?” Joel motioned beyond the
transparent partition to his right. Hospes shook his head.

“I don’t know, really. That’s all up to the judge. My job is to answer your
questions. Do you have any more?”

Joel remembered suddenly that he was dead. What about his father? His
mother?

“Can I see my parents?”

In response, an image of his mother, huddled by his father’s side in a
hospital room, faded in the window.

“Your dad’s going to be all right. And your parents will grieve, to be sure,
but they’ll move on eventually. And someday they’ll be having the exact same
conversation we’re having now.”

Tears came to Joel’s eyes as he considered the finality of everything Hospes
had told him. He was so young! He had so many things he had wanted to do, but
now he wouldn’t get that chance!

Hospes wrapped his arm around Joel’s shoulder and walked him towards the
door at the end of the room.

“It’s not so bad, Joel. I think you’ll like the eternal afterlife.”

“Am I going to heaven or hell?” Joel asked. It seemed the logical question.
If he was going to be spending eternity somewhere, he wanted to know whether
his tears were warranted.

Hospes chuckled. “I was waiting for that one. It’s a good question, but I
don’t have the answer. It’s up to the judge. But if you want my opinion…” He
opened the door and motioned for Joel to walk toward the streaming light the
poured from the opening.

“I think your chances are pretty good.”

Three rooms from where Mr. and Mrs. Mendocino cried together over the loss
of their son, tears of a different kind were being shed. Both Rhonda and Holly
hugged Ernie close as he came to and uttered a few indecipherable words. He
was going to be okay.

Out in the hall, Ames and Cobb listened incredulously as Heather explained
that Joel Mendocino had been killed in the accident. It was a lot for two
tired cops to take in, after all that had already occurred that day. Without
Joel’s help with the tattoo, they’d never have found out about the fight club,
and the poor other guy would probably be dead…

Ames and Cobb stopped by the Mendocino’s hospital room to express their
condolences, then walked out to their cold car. It had been a long day.